I was appalled to learn that The Killers had beaten Guns N' Roses to the Number 1 album spot last week. Not as dismayed as Geffen, who are FURIOUS with Axl Rose for his lack of promotion of THE CHINESE DEMOCRACY. Well, I wish I could have been at all the tills in all the record stores, or hovering over the mouspads of the thousands ordering the Killers album online. 'What the hell are you doing?!' I would have said, 'The Killers are clearly one of the worst bands to have ever been created. Can't you see they lack charisma in any form, that the early promise of their first album disappeared in a torrent of blandness? That they were literally put together in a literal cultural desert?!!'

Maybe they would have looked at me blankly, these idiots, and argued that the Las Vegas quartet had some good songs on the first album, and that - you know - Brandon Flowers writes some interesting lyrics. Ah, Brandon Flowers. A man so devoid of interesting characteristics that growing a moustache is regarded as rebellious behaviour. I would have shaken my head: "You can have your Flowers, but I'm taking my Rose."

My dad came home one evening when I was eight years old with two cassettes. One was for my six-year-old brother. It was SIMPSONS SING THE BLUES. The other was for me. It was APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION. I was initially jealous of my brother: 'Do the Bartman' was No.1, The Simpsons were huge. My dad explained that he loved the voice of the singer in Guns N' Roses, that he reminded him of Robert Plant. I listened to the album on the school run, I pored over the unsettling artwork (the infamous illustration of a robotic rape) and gradually I became engrossed.

Everyone has been talking about the length of time it's taken GnR to release THE CHINESE DEMOCRACY, and that it's not actually GnR because it's just Axl. And that it's completely shit.

Well if you want to listen to the other members of GnR re-hash their earlier work, go and buy Velvet Revolver's two albums. You'll love the first one, which sold 3 million copies, and won't be so sure about the second, which sold something like 300,000 - probably because they were starting to find their own sound.

The point is Axl IS GnR. When I first listened to the album I was pretty cool on opening tracks 'Chinese Democracy' and 'Shackler's Revenge', fit to bursting with instruments and lacquered with a hefty industrial finish. But 'Better' blew my doubts away: Axl is at the front of the mix, his caterwhauling gloriously untainted by time, albeit supported by digital tuning and vocoder-like effects. He even pushes his voice into a new, higher register which threatens to crack glass. I was transported back to those first listens of this alien band.

The album is an unwieldy kaleidoscope of many elements: the sound of years of work and Frankenstein toil. It demands repeated listens, but once you start stripmining the layers you find gems. Not least Buckethead's jaw-dropping soloing. He approaches the guitar in almost the opposite way to Slash, his playing sounds like a lightspeed game of Space Invaders ripped out of six strings. He wears a vintage KFC bucket on his head, by the way. They built him a chicken coop in the studio to record his parts in. He's probably a genius. How does that compare to that curly haired waste of space in The Killers (I can't be bothered to look up his name), whose total lack of invention makes Edge from U2 sound like Yngwie bloody Malmsteen?!!!

When did the guy from The Killers last dance with nunchakus and shred like this?

I bought the new album for my dad, repaying the favour 18 years later. He called today, saying how the more he listens to it the better it gets. But it's all about Axl for him too. That insane banshee call of 15 years in the wilderness.

If I ran the country I'd make this album government issue. Who wants a democracy where The Killers are the top selling band, anyway?

Maybe I should move to Paradise City. God bless Guns N' Roses. And long live Axl Rose, you crazy f**ker.

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